An
attempted dialogue with persons at the Netroots Nation conference
in Minneapolis

by William
McGaughey

From
a local free-circulation newspaper, I learned that Netroots
Nation, an online community associated with the Daily Kos,
would be holding its annual conference at the Convention Center
in Minneapolis. The conference would start on Thursday, June
16, 2011, and run through Saturday, June 18th.

Despite
other pressing obligations, I decided this was too good an
opportunity
to pass by. The news media have largely ignored the shorter-workweek
option for creating jobs even though the national unemployment rate
remains stuck at 9.1 percent. Netroots Nation, a political
community left of
center, is the largest group of its kind. It is credited with mobilizing
much popular support for Barack Obama during the 2008 election campaign.

I
created a sign on a three-foot by four-foot placard. The
sign read: “A
4-day, 32-hour workweek = more real jobs for Americans” With
this sign, I would picket the Minneapolis Convention Center hoping
to engage
conference participants in thought-provoking discussions.

I
also produced half-page leaflets with this message:

“ Hello.
I am Bill McGaughey, an advocate of shortening work
time to bolster employment. Some of my writings are posted
on
http://www.shorterworkweek.com.
(See # 34.) As a former accountant, my specialty is the
economic effect of government regulations to reduce work
time. There
is much misinformation
about the subject.

In
1981, I published a book titled “A
Shorter Workweek in the 1980s”,
which, of course, did not happen. Along with former U.S.
Senator Eugene McCarthy, I was coauthor of another book, “Nonfinancial
Economics: The Case for Shorter Hours of Work”,
published by Praeger in 1989.

Look,
we’ve tried just about every kind of financial
manipulation to “jump start” the economy
after the Wall Street debacle of 2008. For obvious
reasons, an insufficient number
of jobs have been
created. National unemployment stands at 9.1 percent.
Misguided trade policy and failure to reduce work hours
have largely
caused the problem
- and we don’t even discuss such things any more.

Will
you help revive the discussion of our job-creation options?
If the present approach is not working, it
pays to keep an
open mind regarding
policies that the “experts” routinely dismiss.

A
resident of Minneapolis, I can be reached at 2wmcg@earthlink.net
or 612-374-xxxx.”

I
was hoping that persons who received this leaflet would be
motivated to visit www.shorterworkweek.com
and especially
item
#34 which
presented a quick-and-dirty way to create jobs. Basically,
I proposed to amend
the Fair Labor Standards Act by reducing the standard
workweek to 32 hours, taxing away the half-time overtime
premium
instead of paying
it
to the overtime worker, using this money to compensate
for any lost wages, and tightening the exemption for
managerial and professional
employees.

My
plan was to rise early on Thursday morning to greet persons
arriving at the Minneapolis convention center
for the first
event at 8:00
a.m. My former wife said she would meet me in front
of the convention center
to take a photograph. Unfortunately, I dragged
my feet too long in the morning preparations and did not
arrive
until
around 8:00
a.m.
I stood
with my sign on the sidewalk on the west side of
the
convention center and passed out fliers to all
that would take them.

Most
people were receptive. A woman even took a photograph
of me. But then a female security guard came
out of the building to inform
me
that I could not conduct a “protest event” on
Convention Center property. I would have to move
across the street. Two years earlier I
had checked with the Minneapolis City Attorney’s
office and been told that it was permitted to
picket on public sidewalks in Minneapolis
so long as one did not block the flow of traffic.
I informed the guard of that fact. When she insisted
that I leave the property, I said I
wanted to speak with her supervisor. Meanwhile,
I continued to pass out literature.

Five
minutes later, the security guard said she had her supervisor
on the phone. I agreed to
come into
the building
to talk
with him. He merely
repeated what had previously been said. As
it
was getting late, I agreed to take my leafletting
operation
across
the street.
I stood
on a concrete
medium to catch persons who were arriving from
downtown. All in all, I passed out about sixty
leaflets Thursday
morning. Then I
walked
back to my parked car in the Stevens community
across I-94.

My
former wife said she had been inside the convention center
for a half hour starting
8:30 a.m. She
had spoken with conference
attendees
and
even attended an event. Mainly, people were
complaining about the Tea Party. I made another
200 leaflets
at a copy shop
but otherwise
called
it a day.

Friday
morning, I repeated my routine on the east side of the convention
center.
This day,
it seemed
to me
that fewer
people
were willing
to accept my literature. Even so, because
I arrived at 7:30 a.m., I was able to
pass out more pieces. I stood by the
employees entrance catching people as they crossed
the street from the
parking lot on
that side of the building.

At
length, another security guard came out to request that I
leave the
property.
Again,
I repeated
my legal
right
to picket on a public
sidewalk
in Minneapolis. This man admitted that
I was not causing a disturbance
or violating any law but he politely
asked me to leave. Again, I consented.
I walked
back to
my parked
car
to leave the
picket sign
and then returned
to the convention center.

I
was hoping to spend an hour or so at the convention itself
as my former
wife
had done
on the previous
day. I checked
at the registration
desk
hoping that some events would be
free. However, one-day passes to
the conference cost $160. I was thinking
that maybe I could get into the
Exhibitor’s room for free.
No such luck. I needed a registration
badge. Unwilling to pay $160, I left
the convention center.

The
conference program included a “Fight Back
for Good Jobs Rally at the Stone
Arch Bridge” crossing
the Mississippi river on the north
edge of downtown Minneapolis between
1:15 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.
No admission fee would be charged
here. I parked my car at a meter
at the
foot of Fifth Street near the Crown
Roller mill and made my way to
the rally. I had exactly forty-five
minutes.
Having been
ticketed
for a parking violation in front
of my house earlier that day, I
knew I could not be late for even
five
minutes.

Loud
recorded music greeted me as
I entered the pedestrian walkway
on the
bridge.
There was a
gathering of persons
wearing orange
shirts in
the middle of the bridge. Again,
I handed out literature as I made
my
way toward
the middle
of the crowd.
Soon a series of
speakers
including
Mayor R.T. Rybak and Congressman
Keith Ellison addressed
the
crowd.

I
spoke with a middle-aged woman standing nearby who seemed
interested
in my
message. She told
me that she
did abstract
pictures of
individuals. Her boy friend was
able to discern specific features
of the
person by looking at the picture.
Her asked
me
to
decide which of four possible
descriptions best described
her technique.
I picked “interior visionary”.
I asked this woman if she would
take a photograph of me carrying
the sign. She did. This photograph
graces the opening page of ShorterWorkWeek.com.

It
seemed to me that most of the
speakers were recommending
expanded
public-works
programs to create jobs. The
Stone Arch bridge had
a good view of the I-35W bridge
to the east which replaced
one that
fell into
the river in August 2006. Speakers
were suggesting that our nation
has much infrastructure
that
needs repair.
This is
true. Had
I been at the
podium, I might have asked
Mayor Rybak when the city intended
to fix the gaping
pot holes
in
Minneapolis
streets. Winter
freezing caused them
but the pot holes remain in
mid June.

Realizing
that my forty-five minutes of time was expiring,
I headed
back to my
car. On
the way, I
attempted to
give my literature
to
an agent
of the union which was sponsoring
this rally - it might have
been the Laborers’ International
Union of North America -
who manned a table near the
entrance
to the bridge. This man refused
to accept literature
from me because my hand-made
sign lacked a union bug.
He also said that
his union was not in favor
of a 4-day, 32-hour workweek.
Instead, workers wanted more
5-day, 40-hour weeks - all
the hours they could get.
I told him that the economic
implications in shortening
work hours were
widely
misunderstood.

The
Netroots Nation events
calendar mentioned an event
to be held
in the Convention
Center plaza park
between
6:00
and 10:00
p.m.,
sponsored
by the Made in America
Party. It assume this organization
opposes outsourcing
of jobs
to foreign countries.
As I made my way
to the plaza park, I had
a friendly discussion with
a young
African American couple
who agreed with the shorter
workweek proposal.
The woman,
it turned
out, had
grown up on the east side
of Detroit, as had I many
years
earlier.

There
was a sign on the plaza park notifying people
that,
because of possible rain,
the event had been
moved to
room 200 on the
second floor
of the Convention Center.
That precluded my demonstration
with a sign. I passed
out a few
more pieces of
literature and then
left the area.

On
my way back to the car, I passed Peavy Plaza
on
Nicollet Avenue.
A group was
playing music
to a crowd
of 100 to
200 persons seated
on steps
surrounding the amphitheater.
I decided to sit on
some steps across
from
this group, displaying
my sign. I
stayed there
for about twenty
minutes,
leaving when a woman
wanted to
remove her bicycle.

Back
home, I had a bite to eat and then
turned
on television
to the
C-SPAN channel.
Congressman
Ron
Paul was speaking
to a Republican
group at the
Hilton Hotel in New
Orleans. I agreed
with much of
his message but
not everything. Rep.
Paul would never
support a government-induced
shorter
workweek. (I learned
this when
I contacted his Congressional
office
two years
ago.) Even so,
Paul made more sense
to me than some of
the other
Republican candidates,
especially in his
criticisms of the
Afghanistan war
and the
American empire.
It was certainly
true that the United
States cannot afford
such luxuries
any more.

To
my surprise, the event following
the
Republican
forum was a
recorded session
of an interview
that had taken
place inside
the
Minneapolis
Convention Center
at the Netroots
Nation conference earlier
on
Friday. Daily
Kos associate editor,
Kaili
Joy Gray, was
interviewing the
White
House Director
of Communications, Dan
Pfeiffer.

The
very first question, submitted
by a woman
in Seattle, was
to ask if the
Obama
administration
had
a jobs program
for someone
like her.
She was well
educated and had extensive
work experience
but
was now destitute
and unable
to find work.
Mr. Pfeiffer put
up a
good
front
but it was
clear that the
Obama administration
had
run out of ideas
of what to do.
I was
hoping that some
conference
attendees
would
remember
the recommendation
that they might
have seen on
my sign -
a 4-day, 32-hour
workweek.
This program
would create
lots of good
jobs fast although
some of our entrenched
long-hours job-holders
might be miffed.

In
my opinion,
the hour-long
interview was
a disaster
for the Obama
administration.
Kaili Joy Gray
was
a sharp and
largely
unsympathetic
interviewer
who repeated questions
when Pfeiffer
attempted to
ignore them.
The administration’s
policies regarding
gay people
were a particular
bone of contention.
The subject
of
jobs - arguably,
the most important
issue in the
forthcoming
2012 election
campaign
- did not surface
again.

I
began to form an
impression
of the
people who
belong
to Netroots
Nation. Today’s
political
left is devoid
of
positive
policy proposals.
A proposal
such as amending
the Fair
Labor
Standards
Act, which
is simple
and straightforward,
gets nowhere
with them.
Instead,
the
focus is
on demonizing
the Republican
opposition.
It’s
clear that
the Tea Party
arouses particular
ire because
these right-wingers
are opposed
to government
spending
and soaring
budget
deficits.
The only
way the
political
left knows
to create
jobs is for
government
to create
them
with borrowed
money.

In
this case,
it seemed
that the
Obama administration
was dealing
with disgruntled
constituencies
who had
helped elect
the President
in 2008
but now felt
that their
efforts
had not
been repaid. The
political
left ceased
to have
a positive
vision
of the future
but
had
become
a collection
of aggressive
constituencies
each demanding
payoffs
from government
officials
whom they
had helped
to elect. Both
on the political
left and on
the political
right, there seems
to be
a lack
of
capacity
for fundamental
policy
change.

The
bottom
line
is that, for
all this
effort,
perhaps
200
persons
now had
my half-page
flier.
Some
might be
tempted
to visit
ShorterWorkWeek.com.
On the
other
hand,
I had no
extended,
substantial
conversations
about
the shorter-workweek
proposal
in my
brief exchanges
with
persons
entering
the Convention
Center.
True,
I might
not have
been
in the best
mood
to make
new friends,
given
the
personal
problems
that
I was meanwhile
having
to address.

Today,
someone
carrying
a picket
sign
to
support
a proposed
government
policy
comes
across
as
a weirdo
who
must be told
to
leave the
premises
before
he
can
embarrass himself
and
disturb
others
any
more. That
was
a price
I
was
willing to pay
for
the chance
that
someone
at
the
conference might
take
the
policy seriously
and
even write
about
it
in his
or
her political
blog.

My
last
event
at
the
Netroots
Nation
conference
took
place
on
Saturday
afternoon,
June
18th.
There
was
a
light rain
as
I
walked from
my
parking
space
on
3rd
Avenue
to
Wesley
church
on
Grant
street.
As
I
passed by
the
Convention
Center
on
the
east
side,
I
encountered a young
man
who
might
have
been
with
the
AFL-CIO
or,
perhaps,
Working
America.
He
was
sympathetic
to
the
message
on
my
sign.

As
we discussed
the proposal
further, this
man said
that a
particular problem
with the
Fair Labor
Standards Act
was that
employers were
hiring attorneys
to find
loopholes in
the law
that allowed
them to
reclassify an
employee from
nonexempt to
exempt status.
They would
rewrite the
person’s
job description
using just
the right
language to
make it
appear that
he was
doing managerial
work. Then
they would
work this
employee as
many hours
as they
wished without
paying overtime
for work
after forty
hours. We
both agreed
that the
law should
be tightened
in this
regard.

I
wish I
had had
more time
for this
discussion but
the man
had to
go inside
to attend
a conference
session. I
then walked
through the
light rain
to what
I thought
was Wesley
church but
was not.
The church
was actually
just west
of the
Convention Center.
I arrived
too late
to pass
out leaflets
but in
time for
the 2:00
p.m. event.
The event
organizers let
me bring
my sign
inside. I
placed it
against the
wall in
back of
the church.

The
event was
billed as “SPEAKOUT
for good
jobs now”.
U.S. Representative
Keith Ellison
of Minneapolis,
my own
Congressman, was
leading the
discussion along
with two
other current
members of
Congress, Rep.
Raul Grijalva
of Arizona
and Rep.
Jared Polis
of Colorado,
and two
former members defeated in the 2010 election, Alan Grayson of Florida
and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio.

Ellison
and Grijalva
were cochairs
of the
Congressional Progressive
Caucus. I
shook hands with
Ellison; he was not interested in talking. I
had a
chance to
give Grijalva
my half-page
flier which
he immediately
put his
pocket. Grijalva
acknowledged that
Congress was
not considering
amendments to
the Fair
Labor Standards
Act to
shorten work
time.
I then
sat in
a pew
immediately in
front of
Lynn Hinkle,
a union
member at
the Ford
plant in
St. Paul
whom I
had known
twenty years
earlier.

An
organization called
ProgressiveCongress.org
was
sponsoring this
event. The
purpose was
to kick
off a
nationwide tour
to promote
Jobs legislation
in Congress.
Attendees were
asked to
take “the
pledge for
economic opportunity”.
In particular,
they would
agree that
(1) “in
America, every
good worker
deserves a good
American job”,
(2) “America
should again
work for
people who
work for
a living”,
and (3)
We will
use our
strength in
numbers to
counter corporate
dollars.”

After
the five
current or
former members
of Congress
had spoken, members
of the
audience were
invited to
give testimony
at microphones
on either
side of
the church.
Most told
of personal
hardships that
they had
endured while
looking for
a job.
I told
the Congressmen
that today’s
unemployment was
due primarily
to mistaken
trade policy
and to
the failure
to reduce
work hours
in the
seventy years
since the
Fair Labor
Standards Act
went into
effect. Congress could act in this regard but had not yet done so. My
sign in the back of the room suggested one step that might be taken. *

My
testimony was
received with
interest by
panel members
but nothing
further was
said along
those lines. I
passed out
a few
more leaflets
as people
left the
church. On the way out, I also spoke briefly with former Rep. Grayson,
venturing the opinion that the shorter-workweek proposal
might be economically
but not politically feasible. Maybe it's feasible in France,
he remarked. (Yes, we Americans are a hard-working, successful
people, unlike those lazy French - That may not have been
Rep. Grayson's meaning, but the opinion is certainly out
there.)

This
may
have been
my most
productive event
at the
Netroots Nations
conference. I
was no
longer a
gate crasher
but a
legitimate participant.
Then I
returned home
to add
a few
more paragraphs
to this
narrative.

* This
experience gave rise to mixed feelings. On one hand, I did have
a chance to present my proposals directly
to members of
Congress
in the two to three minutes allowed. On the other hand, it struck me
as odd that I was the only one suggesting solutions for joblessness.
Most witnesses complained of their personal situation. It seemed that
the purpose of such events was not to find solutions but to build a
movement of aggrieved persons who would put the spotlight of public
attention on the unemployment problem and carry the Democrats
to victory in the next election.